Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Bill Gates' Chem Secret

Buried deep within a recent NY Times Magazine article, a humbling reminder that not all knowledge comes easily to billionaire tech scions:

source: Microsoft

"Without prompting, [Bill Gates] recounted getting a bad grade in an eighth-grade geography course (“They paired me up with a moron, and I realized these people thought I was stupid, and it really pissed me off!”) and the only C-plus he ever received, in organic chemistry, at Harvard (“I’m pretty sure. I’d have to double-check my transcript. I think I never ever got a B ever at Harvard. I got a C-plus, and I got A’s!”)."

I can't help but draw a connecting line to one of my fictional heroes, as ChemBark noted.

See Arr Oh

Who is this masked chemist?

Finding my way through new challenges.
I was a founding blogger at Scientific American's Food Matters and Blog Syn. I once wrote for C&EN's The Haystack. I've written for Nature Chemistry, Newscripts, Chemistry Blog, Chemjobber, and Totally Synthetic.